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A CONVERSATION WITH OUR READERS

If you're reading this, you're
part of an extraordinary group

by Ed Wojcicki

An September, our Question of the Month asked if you intended to vote in the November 5 election.

You flooded my mailbox with responses. For the first time, everybody had the same answer to the question: Yes, you will vote.

Coincidentally, we also conducted a scientific mail survey of our readers this fall. One question asked those surveyed how often they vote. An astounding 98.3 percent of respondents said they always vote or almost always vote, according to preliminary results from the Survey Research Office at the University of Illinois at Springfield. That 98.3 percent compares favorably, of course, with the expected 50 percent turnout nationally and even lower percentages in primaries and off-presidential years.

But that is not all I found out. We also asked if you had contributed to a political campaign in the last two years. The results reveal that more than seven out of 10 of the readers polled donated to at least one campaign. That figure surprised me, because it is 18 times higher than the percentage of Americans who have contributed recently to a presidential or congressional campaign. Charles Lewis of the Center for Public Integrity in Washington, D.C., says only 4 percent of Americans now contribute to a federal campaign.

This means our readers are extraordinary — you vote and you contribute in numbers that far exceed national averages. You actively participate in our democratic society in simple ways that most Americans don't.

So I already know most of you will be keenly interested in our cover story this month, about the role of money in Illinois politics. You also should appreciate the interview I conducted with Lewis, who wrote The Buying of the President (see page 21), about campaign finance issues.

Thanks to all of you who responded to our readership survey. I know you are a well-educated and busy group. Almost half of you have graduate degrees, and 81 percent have at least a bachelor's degree. Truly extraordinary. (And I know you're busy because many of you spend a lot of time each month on airplanes, in hotels and in restaurants.)

Knowing we have such an upscale readership makes me even more pleased to discover that more than 80 percent of you rated the overall quality of Illinois Issues as excellent or very good.

Not surprisingly, you also suggested ways we could serve you better. Give me some time to analyze these suggestions more closely, please, and I will respond publicly at a later time.

Today I want to remind you to vote November 5. Silly of me, isn't it? But I want to reach that other 1.7 percent.

Illinois Issues November 1996 / 3